Salem’s Chinese Americans

Chinese Americans have been living in Salem since at least 1860.[1]  Despite this long presence, it has been harder to trace their experiences in the written historical record.

Sung Lung Laundry c. 1888. Located on the North side of Court street, west of Liberty Street. While this photograph of a Chinese-owned business in Salem gets used often, little discussion of Salem’s Chinatown has been had beyond popularized “underground tours.” WHC Collections 2012.049.0044.

Immigration

Most of Salem’s first Chinese immigrants, like those who came to Oregon and the West Coast in general, were from the Guangdong 廣東 province of southeast China. They spoke Cantonese and, more likely, their own local dialects.  Economic opportunity in gold mining and railroad building brought many men to the West Coast of the United States.

Men who settled in Salem opened businesses like stores, medical practices, restaurants, and laundries and farmed. By 1893 there were about 250 individuals of Chinese ancestry living in Salem, or about 2% of the City’s population.[2]

Immigration to the U.S. is sometimes painted as a one-way journey.  Reality is often much more complex.  While some men had families and stayed in the community, many other men came for finite periods of time to work and send money to wives and family back home. Even in death, return to China was often planned for by immigrants. Cultural practices emphasizing connection to ancestors led to the disinterment and return of the remains of many men who died in Salem to their home villages in China.[3]

Read more about disinterment practices in Oregon, and Salem’s Pioneer Cemetery here.

Exclusion 

Being an immigrant is hard, but being an immigrant from China was arguably harder.  The 1790 federal Naturalization Act allowed only “free, white” individuals to become citizens.  Individuals born in China would not be allowed to apply for U.S. Citizenship until 1943.[4]

The 1857 Oregon Constitution refused the right to vote and ability to purchase real estate or mining claims to anyone born in China.[5]

Fueled by rampant anti-Chinese sentiment, a series of federal anti-Chinese bills were passed in the late 19th century which further restricted immigration.

Laws don’t always mean compliance.  In Salem there was active resistance to the registration requirements of the 1892 Geary Act.[6]  In 1922, George Lai Sun 黎章廣 expressed his frustration with his inability to obtain citizenship:

I have been here for so long, fifty-four years next June.  I ought to be a citizen, I ought to be voting, too.[7]

In addition to the state and federal laws targeting Chinese-born Americans, local laws and practices also made life for people of Chinese heritage difficult in Salem. Ordinance No. 777 was passed in 1910, and described as needed for the “immediate preservation of the peace, health and safety of the City of Salem.” The ordinance directly targeted Chinese and Japanese noodle restaurants, requiring that they have clear glass windows or doors fronting the street and refrain from having any blinds or screens that would obstruct view of the people within. It also made it a crime to admit a minor from entering or loitering around the restaurant after 9 pm. Violations carried a minimum sentence of 5 dollars or two days in the city jail.

It was also common practice for people selling property in the Salem area to add a codicil to their deeds to prevent future owners from renting to individuals of Chinese, Japanese or African American heritage.[8]

Community

Information compiled from 1870 US Federal Census.

Information compiled from 1910 US Federal Census for Salem, Oregon.

Because of the restrictive immigration policies, Salem’s Chinese American Community at the turn of the 20^th century was predominantly first-generation men.  Exceptions made for immigrants who could claim merchant status meant a growth in the community, including new business ventures and the setting down of family roots.

There is evidence of a wide variety of Chinese-owned businesses in the Salem area.  Stores, medical practices, laundries, hops brokerages and restaurants to name a few.  Stores, especially, provided connection with cultural heritage, importing goods from China that would be difficult to get elsewhere.  In addition to their own lines of business, those with storefronts would often provide messaging services for those who didn’t.  Descriptions of yearly festivals also describe how stores served as headquarters, collecting money to buy materials for community celebrations and the place folks would gather to share.

House Cleaned and Carpet Put down.  Leave orders at 262 Liberty Street (old number) ,next door to Quong Hing’s store as I do not work at Buren & Hamilton’s Anymore.  Woo Ging.    Oregon Statesman 19 Sept 1905

Chinatown(s)

Chinese businesses and residences listed in the 1884, 1895, and 1915 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map for Salem, Oregon.

Salem’s Chinatown, was not a single, static neighborhood or block, but clusters of businesses and homes, which relocated around the downtown area overtime.  The largest clusters were first centered along State Street between Liberty and High Street in the 1880s, then the east side of Liberty Street between State and Court Streets, and eventually consolidated along the northwest corner of Ferry and High Streets.  The term “Chinatown” also often referred to Salem’s collective Chinese-American residents, regardless of where they were living and working.

Legally banned from owning their own property, many of Salem’s first-generation Chinese immigrants were dependent on landlords willing to rent to them.  Many of those willing did little to improve the buildings they were leasing.  Fire was a constant threat and water and sewer connections often far behind code requirements.  These safety and health violations were often talked up in the press and used as leverage to displace Chinese American tenants from areas deemed important for future city growth and development.

The Bennett House, which stood at the northwest corner of State and High Street, started out its life as fancy hotel, but had fallen into disrepair and was one of the few places individuals of Chinese heritage could rent in the area.  In 1887, a fire broke out destroying the building and killing three residents including La Fuen, Lin Yu and Ah Goon, many others, including George Sun and his wife, had to jump from the building to safety.  The papers described the building as very old and hazardous and that offers had been made in the past to raze it, but the paper noted “the occupants paid the proprietors a rental of $44 per month, but the building was not worth over $1,200.”[9]

While there is a lot of newspaper coverage talking about the deplorable living and sanitary conditions in Salem’s Chinatown with titles like “Death from Dirt: The Horrible Filth in Chinese Quarters”[10] and “Sanitary condition in Chinatown condemned by Committee on Health and Police”[11] there are also stories that point fingers at the individuals who were, a contemporary mayor claimed, criminally responsible for the conditions:

Arrests will follow  [Salem City] Recorder Judah reported that he had notified all owners of property in Salem’s Chinatown district to make immediate sewer connections, where such connections do not now exist, and that no reply had been received from any of the parties that are concerned.  Mayor Bishop expressed an opinion that the dilatory parties should be arrested.  The council has for weeks been negotiating with property owners for an improvement in the sanitary condition of this block in the business district, and the patience of the councilmen is about exhausted.  After some discussion, Stoltz was successful in a motion directing Chief of Police Gibson to proceed with the enforcement of the ordinance covering the subject.  If the process involved the arrest of prominent parties who persist in the maintenance of a nuisance that has been complained of, and for the abatement of which the owners have been repeatedly notified by the proper authorities[12]. 

 In 1924, the redevelopment of the northwest corner of Ferry and High Streets wiped out the last large cluster of Chinese-owned businesses in downtown Salem.[13]  A year later a newspaper columnist would claim: “Now there now is no Salem Chinatown.”[14]  This did not mean that people of Chinese heritage disappeared from Salem.

Myth of the Underground Tunnels

One of the most pervasive myths about individuals of Chinese heritage in Salem is the story of subterranean tunnels.  To date, no documentation has been brought forward to help prove these stories in Salem. Systematic scholarship, archaeology and oral history, however, is starting to poke holes in these legends in Salem (and across the American West) and contextualize them as a legacy of Anti-Chinese propaganda long used to justify removal of Chinese communities from lucrative downtown property.  The reality is that Salem’s early Chinese residents lived and worked above ground in mostly one-story wooden structures, devoid of basements, that do not survive today.

Underground structures were used in Salem.  Many early businesses used what are called sidewalk vaults, often identifiable by the glass inclusions in sidewalks meant to help light the underground spaces.  These were practical places that allowed extended storage space under underutilized sidewalks and an entry point for freight deliveries that would not disrupt day-to-day activities in the retail areas above.  These vaults do not have exits or connections, and the ones existing today, like those on Liberty Street and State Street, are attached to buildings that postdate documented Chinese American occupation in those areas.[15]

In contrast, the contemporary descriptions we do have of Chinese-owned business and residences in the area are consistent.  The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps from the 1890s through the 1910s actually identify buildings occupied by individuals of Chinese heritage as well as color and code notations about the construction of the buildings. With one exception, all buildings labelled are wooden structures and most are only one story. [16]  These are often described as shacks and ramshackle.[17]  One 1891 article describes a new Chinatown being “erected from the shacks hauled away to make room for the new block.”[18]  This description indicates a construction style devoid of elaborate basements or even foundations.

This is not to say that there were no nefarious activities happening.  There are lots of newspaper and court documents describing opium use by both Chinese and white individuals,[19] as well as gambling[20], prostitution,[21] murder[22] and assault.[23]  However, no mention of tunnels have been found in these reports to date.

Why, in the face of the evidence, do these stories persist?  Lore around underground activities is often sensationalized and marketed to engaged tourists and create economic opportunities.  However, spreading these stories can skew our understanding of history and the people that lived through it.

Learn more about the dismantling of the myths around some of Oregon’s most infamous underground tunnels in Pendleton, Oregon. Hidden Histories: Pendleton’s Early Chinese Community: Underground Tunnel Myth vs. Above-Ground History from Portland Chinatown Museum on Vimeo.

Outside of Chinatown

Many people of Chinese heritage in early Salem didn’t live or work in Chinatown.  Farmers and farm laborers lived and worked in rural areas around the city.  Some individuals took work as cooks or servants, living inside the homes of Euro-American families. A large number also came to Salem from other parts of the state due to incarceration in state institutions like the Oregon State Hospital and the Oregon State Penitentiary.

The 1900 U.S. Census enumerated 50 individuals of Chinese heritage living in Salem, but as one newspaper commented:

It would appear from the number of [Chinese] seen on Salem’s streets almost daily, that the number residing in the city exceeded fifty but it is explained that many reside on farms surrounding Salem…

Salem’s Ng family spent most of their time in Salem living and working outside of Chinatown.  Ng Lung Chung (also known as Gong), settled in the Salem-area in about 1886.[24]    A skillful farmer, he rented land in West Salem and South Salem where he raised hops and vegetables.[25]  In 1910, the family, consisting of wife, Dora, son Charlie and daughters Alice and Helen was living on a hop farm on Slough Road (later renamed Riverside Drive) with six single men field hands from China, Korea and Kentucky.[26]

In 1910, the Ng family purchased a house at 305 18^th Street.  As a first-generation Chinese immigrant, born in China, head of the family Ng Lung Chung was not allowed by Oregon law to own real estate, so the deed was put in name of his eldest son — who was 12 years old at the time of purchase.  Being born in the U.S., Charles H. Chung (A.K.A. Harry Ng Mun Gate), was a citizen and eligible to own property.  The family sold the property in 1928.[27]  Daughter Helen Ng Mung Tayne remembered the house as: “a white house with a great big maple tree in front.”[28]

Beatrice Crawford Drury, who grew up on Brown’s Island (now part of Minto-Brown Island Park, recollected that 300 individuals of Chinese heritage worked on truck farms there during her childhood.

Celebrations

1897. Two Chinese gentlemen dressed in Chinese apparel sit in front of panels or hangings decorated with Chinese art (shrine). They are identified as Dr. Kum on the left and George Sun on the right. Mr. Sum is a merchant. They both hold Chinese calling cards in their hands. Willamette Heritage Center Collections, 2015.025.0021

At the turn of the 20th century,  portions of Salem’s downtown would undergo a transformation in late January or early February.  Decorations and flags would festoon shop windows and alleyways around Chinese-run businesses and the quiet night air would pop and sizzle with firecrackers – all in celebration of the Lunar New Year.   The celebrations often drew crowds of onlookers from a variety of different backgrounds.

Read more about Salem’s Lunar New Year Celebrations here.

We also know from oral history interviews and archaeology that Salem’s residents of Chinese heritage celebrated the annual Qing Ming festival at Salem’s Pioneer Cemetery.  As Suie Lai Sun remembered in an interview with Keizer Historian Ann Lossner:

Archaeological excavations in 2017-2018 have helped to uncover the remains of an altar or funerary table used in the Chinese section of Salem’s Pioneer Cemetery. The low concrete table is located in the northeast side of the cemetery.  Used historically for funeral rites and other celebrations, the altar is one of the few remaining places associated with Salem’s early Chinese community.  It had fallen into disuse by the 1950s, and photographic evidence shows it was severely damaged sometime after 1963. Archaeological investigation undertaken by the City of Salem and many community partners helped locate and uncover the altar and many associated artifacts including the grate for a burner and glass and ceramic fragments from foodstuffs that were used in rituals at the site.[29]

With the altar uncovered, a Qing Ming ceremony was revived in 2018, and it has become an annual event.  Learn more about the Qing Ming festival here.

Into the Future

The dismantling of Salem’s Chinatown areas in the 1920s did not mean, that everybody of Chinese heritage left the city or that immigrants did not continue to enter the country.

Credit Statement

Written by Kylie Pine with assistance from Dr. Myron Lee, Dr. Juwen Zhang, Kimberli Fitzgerald, Kirsten Strauss and Ellen Eisenberg.